


The Hut By The Woods

by EveandJohnny



Category: Zamonien | Zamonia - Walter Moers
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-07-03 20:23:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15826275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EveandJohnny/pseuds/EveandJohnny
Summary: The friends Oric and Kunibert are on a hike through Zamonia when they come across a mysterious hut close to the Great Forest. They are cold and hungry so they seek shelter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The two Wolpertings are OCs from peers over on tumblr, namely a-christmas-spudgy and mozania-naf alias nidy-loren.

Dusk had broken, in fact, it was already fading into a star-spangled, deep blue night sky. The two Wolpertings Oric of Bookholm and Kunibert Welsch couldn’t possibly hike any longer, even if they wanted to. But they were tired and sweaty and hungry and the prospect of facing just even the outskirts of The Great Forest at night was not the most promising one. So they decided on camping a healthy distance away of the woods but that didn’t make them feel much better.

“Oric, I don’t like this one tiny bit” Kunibert said as he glanced warily around.

“Me neither what other choice do we have?” his friend asked as he tried to make himself a little bit comfortable. But his thin blanket didn’t do much to keep out both the cold and the hard surface on which he was lying.

Kunibert just chuntered in response as he adjusted his backpack under his head. But he couldn’t, for the love of Hoth, find some sleep. When he closed his eyes his remaining senses were even more sensitive and he picked up worrying noises drifting over from the forest and even more distressing odours.

So he was more than surprised when his nose suddenly caught the scent of strong herbal tea and fried vegetables. He still preferred roasted meat over any vegetable; yet he leaped up in relief when it hit his nostrils. Because this was a civilized scent. It promised a warm hut, probably harmless company and real food. Maybe even a nice feathery bed. His mouth was already watering.

“Oric, are you still awake?” he whispered and nudged his friend.

Oric grunted. “No!”

“But don’t you smell that? There’s a house nearby!” Kunibert was wide awake; if there had ever been a shred of tiredness in his body, it was definitely gone by now.

Oric rolled around, not yet opening his eyes but his nose twitched. “You’re right” he murmured, finally popping one eye open.

“We should go and investigate!”

Now Kunibert had Oric’s undivided attention. “Are. You. Mad? It could be a trap!”

“But what if not? If they are kind folks who are just waiting to share their campfire with us? We would be naff to let this chance slip. I’m sick of sleeping under the stars, of getting bitten by countless insects and having to worry about getting eaten by green wolves.” It was obvious that Oric had already made his decision.

Oric bestirred groaningly. He shot his friend a deadly glance. Kunibert just gave him a sweet smile. “Fine” Oric sighed. “Let’s go.”

“I promise you won’t regret it.” Kunibert grinned and pulled Oric up. They gathered their stuff and set off into the direction of the smell.

*** 

It was still a bit of a walk before they reached a strange looking cabin. A little out of square definitely, and the wood was covered in ivy twines. The two trapezial windows sent a reddish golden light into the darknes and illuminated the dense garden filled with stinging nettle, sundew, mandrake and daphne, among other partially toxic plants Oric managed to identify. His survival instinct urged him to stay clear from the garden, but his friend, not acquainted with flora like he was, had frankly marched up to the door and knocked. So Oric had no other choice but to follow him and prevent him from any danger that might be lurking behind the door.

When the first light spilled through a little wedge of the open door, the two Wolpertings held their breath. Suspiciously quiet, at least for such rusty hinges, the door opened further until it disclosed the view into a room crammed full of _stuff_. Roots of trees that the darkness outside must have swallowed because Kunibert hadn’t seen any crept over the floor or supported shelves full of vials filled with colourful liquids. Inbetween stood glasses in which eyes, legs and other extremities of small animals were packed.

A shiver ran down Oric's spine while Kunibert ogled at all the creepy wonders like a child.

 A round table dominated the centre of the room where a long still stood, with winding tubes, round flasks and spiralled glass. A yellow fluid bubbled in it, snaking its way through the tubes until all that was left was a fine yellow powder. That were the things to see.

But there was also an astounding number of things to smell. Oric closed his eyes for a moment and the room exploded in so many colours that he got a little lightheaded. The most prominent streak was the sulphuric stench of the yellow powder but there was also a brown line for the rotting leaves at the back of the room. A red stripe wound its way from a bunch of potted flowers into his nose and the deep green streak of the fried vegetables wafted over to him, the scent that had brought them here in the first place.

“Don’t you want to step in, now that you have already demanded entrance?” a screechy and raspy voice said from a corner.

Oric felt a tug at his sleeve just as he opened his eyes to turn to the voice. “An Uggly!” Kunibert whispered terrified. He didn’t need to tell Oric, he could identify an Uggly by himself.

The creature was not yet hideous like Ugglies naturally were. But that was probably because she was partly hidden in the shadows. Then she stepped into the unsteady light of a big chandelier equipped with blood-red candles and the two Wolpertings let out a little yelp. Leathery skin stretched over a triangular-shaped bony face, it curled around sunken eyes and sharp black teeth. Her nose, dotted with spike-like warts and supporting tiny wire-framed glasses, wrinkled as she let out a little hiss and she actually displayed a snakelike forked tongue. The Uggly was robed into a heavy tartan cloak that behaved like a living creature as it flowed around her plump body. Its most prominent feature was a collar whose tips rose over her head and it stood stiff like a pinnacle from the Gloomberg mountains. She came towards them and touched her hat, causing it to ride a little higher and reveal two hornes bending towards each other.

Oric gripped Kunibert’s shoulder and and started to slowly retreat. He had to stop, sweat starting to drip on his forehead, when he felt wood in his back. The door had closed behind them without them noticing. They were trapped. What did the Uggly plan to do with them?

“Welcome in my humble home, my name is Eggedine Eilenstein. I see that you come from Wolperting so you have a long way behind you. Why don’t you want to take a seat and rest your tired feet? I know a Wolperting’s crave for filled mousebladders but Ugglies are vegetarians so all I can offer you are fried vegetables.” Her voice would have worked fantastically well as the one of a courteous host if it wasn’t so shrieking.

Oric and Kunibert still stood rooted to the spot and they didn’t see any stools anyway.

The Uggly tilted her head to eye them curiously until it dawned on her. “Oh, please excuse my tactlessness!” She pulled on a root and a hatch opened in the floor. “I understand that you don’t want to go down there” she said as she descended into the hole to retrieve two stools from her sleeping room.

When she appeared back in the upper room she placed them at the table. “I hardly get any guest out here so I don’t always have stools ready. But I usually cook more than I eat in one meal. So please feel free to eat as much as you want.”

She placed a bowl full of vegetables - lecchinis, tomatoes, Midgard pumpkins, lentils and purple potatoes - in front of them as well as two spoons and two smaller bowls. Oric and Kunibert exchanged glances. So far the Uggly hadn’t acted hostile at all, apart from the closed door, but it could also be a very well devised trap.

Then Kunibert’s tummy started to growl. He looked down, then apologetically to Oric. He shrugged. “Sorry” he mumbled and dove his spoon into the vegetables and scooped a heap in his bowl. Then he devoured it and it merely needed seconds until it was all gone.

Oric knew his friend’s amazing appetite but this speed was even news to him. The Uggly watched motherly over him before she started to eat as well. Oric looked to her. She winked encouragingly, the gesture making her features even more distorted. Oric sighed and carefully tasted the first sample. It was considerably seasoned, underlining the taste of every vegetable in a surprising way for his tastebuds. It even coaxed a little bark of appreciation from him.

“Wonderful that you like it. May I also offer you a place to sleep?” she rasped and put the bowl into a sink.

The Wolpertings exchanged glances again. Though Oric didn’t yet feel a hint of poison he still didn’t trust her as far as he could spit. And that wasn’t very far. But the prospect of sleeping outside in the cold didn’t really cheer him up, either. It was probably for the best to stay here, to keep an eye on the Uggly. And when push came to shove they still outnumbered her.

“Well, everything is better than sleeping in the dirt. But we stay up here!” He received a jolt in the ribs from Kunibert.

“Don’t be so rude!” he hissed.

Oric looked caught. “Sorry, I mean, we would like to stay up here if it isn’t too much of a bother.”

The Uggly laughed, a hair-raising sound like nails being scratched over a blackboard. “Not at all. My sleeping quarters are down there anyway. I only ask you to not touch anything.“ She gathered their crockery, then disappeared through the hatch again. As she rumbled about down there Kunibert got up from his stool and wandered over to the potted plants. Though a lot less schooled about flora like Oric was, he still managed to identify Apollo’s Rose, Almond Floret and Silver Seed.

“Kuni!” Oric hissed. „Get back here!“

„But they are so beautiful“ Kunibert leaned closer to the flowers. He was so absorbed in his admiration that he didn’t notice how Oric went pale and looked as if he was about to topple off the stool. Nor did he notice the source of Oric’s malaise, namely the Uggly creeping up on him, tail swishing and tongue slowly unrolling.

“They certainly are. That’s why I cultivate them.”

“Dear mother of Hoth! You scared me alright” Kunibert said and turned around, only to face, well, the chest of the Uggly.

“Sorry, that wasn’t my intention.” She towered over Kunibert, still intimidating him, though her relaxed expression actually articulated the contrary.

Oric felt in his pockets for his knife.

“You won’t need that. I just brought some duvets upstairs. You’d like to sleep on them or do you rather prefer the camping mats strapped to your backpacks?” She laid out the duvets without looking at Oric but it was crystal-clear that she knew what he had been searching in his pocket. The duvets looked invinting, their sight making the Wolpertings quite literally instantly tired. They eyed them with longing stares.

A door clapped, snapping Oric out of his stupor. He looked around confused and noticed that the Uggly was gone. The hatch was closed, they were alone. “Kuni, this is our chance! We should escape!“

Just as he had said the words, a couple of roots snaked from their place on the floor up to the door, barring any possibility of getting away.

“No, Oric, it doesn’t look like it. And anyway, these duvets seem way to cosy to not sleep on them for at least one night.” Kunibert made himself comfortable and patted the other duvet to invite his friend to lie beside him.

Oric looked around for possible exits one last time but it was no use. So he ambled over whether he wanted it or not.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Oric got roused out of his sleep was not by a fragrant scent but by a muffled commotion outside the hut. He shook his head to clear his mind but kept his eyes shut. He let his nose do the work. The greyish brown must of unwashed Bluddums floated to Oric and stabbed his sensitive nasal mucosa. Immediately, he was wide awake.

“Kuni! Kuni!” he whispered urgently and poked his friend. “There are Bluddums out there!”

Kunibert just grunted unwillingly and turned away from Oric. He poked him again but got no reaction. So he sighed, got up from his duvet and crawled over to the hatch. Just when he reached it there was a loud boom at the door.

“Bloody Hel!” he muttered but didn’t hesitate to unlock the hatch. “Eggedine!” he yelled quietly, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness.

“Yes boy?” A pair of yellowish glowing eyes popped up right before him and scared him so much that he jerked up and hit the back of his head at the hatch.

He quickly recovered and said “There are Bluddums out the door.” As if to underline his words, the boom sounded again.

The Uggly had lit a lantern and descended up the stairs with heavy steps. Oric scrambled backwards and got up off the floor.

By now Kunibert had sat up on his bed and squinted around. “What is going on?”

“Bluddums” the Uggly informed him, then marched over to the door.

“Wait, you’re not going to open the door!” Kunibert issued a muffled cry.

The Uggly turned one last time, an eyebrow raised. “Why yes, I will. Everything else would be rude. You two hide behind the table. That way we have an advantage.“

The Wolpertings nodded, albeit not entirely convinced, and retreated. Now the Uggly opened the door. The Bluddum in front had raised his fist, presumably to knock a third time, but it swung further, dangerously close to her head. But she elegantly ducked away as if she’d never done anything else.

“What is your wish?” she asked and though she was hardly one head taller than Kunibert, making her at least about two heads smaller than the Bluddums, she radiated intimidation.

For a second, the Bluddums were impressed but then they rose to their full height and stepped forward. “We, uh, wish your money! All the treasures you have!” They pushed the Uggly out of the way and trudged into the hut, their weight shaking its foundations.

Nobody moved for the blink of an eye, then it all happened at once. The Bluddums lunged forward to grab what they mistook for pyras but were actually different herbal powders pressed into pyramidal shapes. The Uggly swished her tail, it wrapped around the feet of the intruders and let them crash onto floor. Taking this as a sign, the Wolpertings emerged, their swords drawn and in the most adorable way, owed to their low heights yet abundant will to fight, bounded over the table.

The Bluddums got up again and grabbed the first thing that came into their hands which were coincidently Kunibert and Oric. But what a mistake they had made! The friends slashed their swords at them, giving them a new haircut and Oric even nicked a piece of one of the Bluddum’s ear.

The Bluddum cried out and threw the little Wolperting into the wall but an uprising root prevented Oric from being injured or destroying a window. Meanwhile, another root had curled itself around the Bluddum’s arm as he was about to throw a punch at Kunibert who was still struggling against the hold of the second Bluddum.

Oric ran to the Bluddums though he risked a glance at the Uggly whom he had assumed just standing around and idly watching. But she was moving her arms as if conducting an orchestra and the roots were swishing accordingly.

One of them now hit the left Bluddum straight into back. He tumbled forward and lost the grip on Kunibert. The Wolperting immediately rolled back on his feet and hit at the hairless calves of his kidnapper. It may have looked funny but the sword left a deep gush in the flesh. It was the Bluddum’s misfortunate that he didn’t wore long trousers as his fellow members of the species but shorts, exposing his ugly, vein-streaked blood-red legs. Before the Bluddum could get up again a root draped around his neck and strangled him until he was unconcious.

The second Bluddum was not shocked by the little involvement his companion was making any longer. He swung a haymaker at Oric and aimed well as he knocked the poor little Wolperting out. He soared through the air and was again caught by a vigilant root.

Kunibert looked quickly around and spotted a heavy volume on the shelf right beside the door. He didn’t know what it was about but he also didn’t care. He just knew it was exactly what he needed at the moment. Kunibert grabbed it. Suddenly he was lifted up by a root around his chest. First he struggled to get free, fearing that the root had nabbed the wrong fighter. But when he caught the Uggly’s eye she winked and the root lifted him higher until he was above the Bluddum’s head. With the aid of the root, he picked up enough speed and smashed the book onto the opponent’s head.

The Bluddum swayed, rolled his eyes and flailed his arms. Then, in slow-motion, he fell like a logged tree. For a second, nobody spoke. The two remaining conscious Zamonians in the room just looked at the ones lying on the ground.

Then Kunibert stirred to life and rushed to his friend. “Oric, Oric, wake up!” He shook him. First, Oric’s lids fluttered, then he slowly opened him eyes.

“Here, drink that.” The Uggly appeared beside them and handed him a cup of a steaming liquid. Kunibert briefly wondered how she had managed to heat it up in such a short amount of time but he decided it didn’t matter. That his friend recovered was the more important thing right now.

Oric drank, scrunched his face in disgust but immediately had more colour in his face. “Pfeww.” he huffed. “I feel like I’ve been used as a clapper!”

"Don’t worry, you should feel better in a few minutes. I’m just wondering what we should do with our two friends here?” She got up and bend over to inspect them. “If I throw them out here chances are that they come back. But unfortunately I can’t move my house, either. I’ve heard of such events in Malaisea but I doubt it works with my lovely little home.”

Kunibert and Oric exchanged glances. ‘Lovely little home’ was not the first term that would have come to their minds. “We could deposit them in the Great Forest. I think Zamonia would thank us if there were two Bluddums less roaming around” Kunibert suggested with earnest.

The Uggly looked at the intruders for another moment, then shrugged and said “Well, I’ll then give them something so they can sleep a little longer which should grant us more time to think about what to do. By the way, that was an excellent grab you made their, little Wolperting. With dreamlike certainty, you went for the heaviest book in my possession, the Complete Handbook of Ugglimism. Was that a spontaneous suggestion?“

Kunibert swayed his head. „In the moment, it was. But I have seen it before. My foster father, a Natifftoff, did that with a bureucratic dictionary, also to a Bluddum, to save me. It was very impressive.”

“A Natifftoff so close to fighting? That is very impressive indeed. What is his name? I know one or two of them myself” the Uggly said.

Kunibert eyed her with suspicion. “How?”

She just shrugged in response and gave him something that was probably supposed to be a mysterious smile but just turned out to be a horrible grimace.

“Err, his name is Kaudel Welsch.”

“Oh, good old Kaudel! What a lovely surprise. You probably know that he got his first name due to a spelling mistake of the Atlantis registry office?”

Kunibert knitted his eyebrows. His dad didn’t talk much about the time before his training as an administration clerk. “What do you mean?“

“Well, his parents were originally from Germany and named him Kauder. Apparently, he then would have had a name that made sense in German. But the office clerk spelled it wrong. His parents made quite a few complaints but they all got quashed.”

Kunibert was stunned. No, he had never heard the story before. And it all sounded rather made-up to him. Anway, how was the Uggly supposed to know this?

“I see that you don’t believe me. But it is true. Let me see, I should have it here somewhere.” She went down through the hatch and they could hear her ruffling down there.

It took her about a minute, then her horns - in the turmoil of the previous half hour she had forgotten to put on her hat - emerged back through the porthole. She waved a framed photography. “Look, this was taken at our time at the University in Gralsund. We didn’t study the same, of course, but we were in the student’s council. I was the only Uggly in it and it was your father who defended me whenever someone said something derogative about me or my species.”

Kunibert studied the photo in disbelief. There was his father, peering through his round glasses and wearing his blue cloak, but he was considerably younger, life had yet to carve crow’s feet into the corners of his eyes.

And two people away stood Eggedine, a lot less wrinkly but far away from being a beauty. Back then she had a taste for simple black cloaks and broader hats. They were both smiling, of course it didn’t look like smiling in the Uggly’s face.

“Unbelievable!” Kunibert muttered.

“I agree. Who would have thought that fate would toss Kaudel’s child through my door, that he even has a child!” the Uggly ranted as she set the kettle on the stove.

“Foster child” Kunibert corrected.

She shrugged. “Who cares about that? I was a foster child myself, raised by a couple of Hogglings. As much as we know about spells, botany and, in my case, the sciences, we know hardly anything about our species. Most of us grow up alone but whether we are abandoned by our parents or actually grow in some obscure part of the Great Forest nobody knows. Not even we Ugglies. Anyway, I loved my parents and I used to still visit them every once in a while but they died when a Bollogg trampeled their village.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that” Oric said while Kunibert had only half listened. He was still transfixed by the photograph, a spotlight on his father’s past that he rarely got.

The Uggly just waved. “No need to be. It has been decades since this happened. But now, to more urgent matters!” She knelt beside the Bluddums and injected into their arms a black liquid that sloshed inertly around in the syringe. “Now, that keeps them asleep for at least three hours which should give us enough time to deposit them somewhere safe. Wait here.”

She got up and left the hut. Outside it was still pitch black. “Do you think we should stay? Or should we better run and let her deal with them?” Oric nudged Kunibert.

“Huh? Oh, no, we help her. It’s the least we can do.”

Oric looked suspiciously at his friend. “I can remember very clearly the time when you’d rather not entered the hut and now you feel some kind of obligation. For what?”

“She let us sleep here. She fed us. And she helped us fighting. I think that’s a great deal to feel grateful for” Kunibert said defensively. “I don’t know what your problem here is, it was after all you who couldn’t strain their curiousity and blundered into her hut.”

“When you two are done quarrelling there are two Bluddums that need to be relocated” the screechy voice of the Uggly rasped over at the door. The two Wolpertings saw that she had wheeled over an unusally large barrow. “You two take one claw each and I carry the legs. I’ve come to the conclusion that, yes, the best idea is to bring them into the Great Forest.”

Kunibert hesitated on touching the filthy creature but Oric was less timid, he firmly gripped the paw and heaved it onto his shoulder to carry it more easily. In the end, the first Bluddum was in the air, well, more or less, as his hairy belly still dragged over the floor, the threshold and down the stairs. Carrying the second Bluddum outside took even less time. The burrow grated under the heavy weight, then, with a certain momentum, the Uggly set it in motion.

It wasn’t far till the hem of the forest. The Uggly stopped and, quite gratefully, so did the Wolpertings. “Thank Hoth, I thought we would be going into the forest” Oric sighed in relief.

“Oh, but we will” the Uggly answered and knotted a red string that seemed to be glowing in its core around a tree.

“And if someone comes and snaps it in half?” Oric worried.

“Don’t worry, I will lead us out here one way or the other.” The Uggly sounded very self-assured and Oric really wanted to believe her but he couldn’t think of a way how to do that.


End file.
